Laura Cedillo

22 June 2006

Womens Studies

Bredin

Gender Roles

            Today gender roles are still seen all over from the home to the work place.  In a world where equality is supposed to be taking effect there is still one thing that is holding us back, gender roles.  Why is this, because man is still seen as a masculine and dominant figure and woman is seen as feminine and emotional.

            The gender roles that are seen today in the United States are that men should still be bringing home the money and that women should be the caretaker.  The roles seem to be changing but they are not gone.  Women are getting higher education and are advancing in career fields with men and yet even with that women are still seen as weaker because of their emotional qualities they bring with them.

            A total gender role divided society would be seen as the man heading the education, profession and decision making of the household.  The women are left with the housework and with the caring and upbringing of the children although the man would decide where he would want his children to go to school.  Today families have come far from this specific gender role classification.  Although it still hasn’t been completely broken.  A society without gender roles would be seen as education would be equal and careers would be just as important for women as they are to men.  The household task would be shared and divided evenly as would be the childcare and upbringing of the children.  Basically man could not dominate over women.  Right now the divide seems to be in the middle where women are gaining more power but are still seen as the weaker sex. 

            Gender roles have been installed into our minds since birth and to get rid of them completely is a hard task and probably will not happen for a very long time if it ever does.  Men will always be seen as the stronger gender while women will be the more sensitive, emotional gender. 

            Gender roles we have come to accept is explained as socialization. “Socialization [is] encouraging wanted and discouraging unwanted behavior (wikipedia)”.  There has been created a way of life of how man and women should be seen in society.  This of course is now breaking because gender roles are becoming meshed together.  Which also brings out an even bigger topic of family gender roles being of a man and women. 

            Today that is still a very strict gender role.  A family should be seen as a male father a female mother and their children.  These roles have now started to break and there has been much debate about same sex marriages and whether two men or two women can raise a child without the child being affected.  People have a hard time stepping outside the box of gender roles that they were brought up to believe in and this is why this topic is so debated against.  This is another topic altogether, the point is that even though we seem to be breaking gender roles it is going very slowly and most of the changes are still seen as not good and wrong.  The acceptance of the woman being in a higher position or more paying job then man is seen as degrading.  Men who are seen cleaning or cooking are seen as feminine and not a “man.” So obviously we still have a ways to go with acceptance of these new gender roles that are starting to take place.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_role